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I’ve worked twenty-five consecutive tax seasons, and each one seems more grueling than the one before it. This year, because the deadline was April 18, we had three extra days to suffer. Last year, we also had February 29 because it was leap year. And Martine Luther King’s birthday? And President’s Day? Nope, we worked those days, as well as most Saturdays and some Sundays.

Although I had been working part time since May 2016, I worked full time from the beginning of March to today, primarily because our tax manager, Don Yamagishi, died on February 28. I do not have one-tenth of Don’s tax smarts, but I know a lot about the tax software and how to use it effectively. So I slaved with the rest of them because I did not want all the burden going on their shoulders.

Tomorrow, I’m going downtown to visit the Central Library and the Last Bookstore at 5th & Spring. It’ll be nice to relax a bit.

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Since the beginning of May, I have been semi-retired. Now, with the passing of our tax manager on Tuesday, I am being asked to come back full time—at least until the end of tax season. I had hoped to avoid another high-pressure tax season, but I pretty much had to agree to help out; else, I might have been forced to look for another job at my advanced age. So I can expect the next six weeks to be highly stressful. Life is like that sometimes.

But before I started in on the heavy-duty work, I decided to go to Descanso Gardens with Martine. The tulips were planted, and this was the first weekend of a two-=weekend Cherry Blossom Festival. Only some of the cherry trees were in flower, but the gardens were crowded, mostly with Japanese-Americans looking for an American equivalent of their own cherry blossom festivals. Fortunately, Descanso is large enough that one can easily escape the crowds and still find beauty.

The beauty of the tulips, and even of the lone lilac that came into bloom early, will help me in the weeks to come. Unfortunately, the tax deadline this year is Tuesday, April 18. That happens whenever April 15 falls on a Saturday or Sunday. This year it is on Saturday, and Monday is a holiday (Emancipation Day) in the District of Columbia; so, Tuesday is the tax deadline.

I’ve already filed my taxes, so at least I don’t have to worry about that.

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Tax season is now over. Theoretically, I could still e-file returns and extensions until midnight Pacific Daylight Time, but wild horses cannot get me to return to work. Nor ducks and rabbits, for that matter.

It’ll be nice to have some time to myself after a month working seven days a week.

Wish me luck!

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This weekend, my ire is being highly concentrated on those clients who bring in their data late. The worst are landlords who own multiple commercial properties and who like to play with the numbers until the last possible minute. It’s a sort of game for them, and a misery for anyone who works in an accounting office.

Well, I took my revenge on one of the worst. I had to enter an occupation code and wound up entering “cattle feedlot operator”—but only because here was no code for people running houses of prostitution.

I hope the Department of Agriculture comes after this clown and asks him, “Where’s the beef?”

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You may wonder why your taxes are due on April 18 instead of April 15 this year—even though April 15 falls on a Friday. You can blame it on (or otherwise, if you’re so inclined) the District of Columbia, a Federal District that is free of Congressional representation. (So lucky!)

They have a holiday each April 16 that commemorates President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. It is actually an international holiday and, in my opinion, probably better than most holidays. I mean, who gives a cracker about Columbus Day? The man didn’t discover America: the Icelander Leif Ericsson did. And both Memorial Day and Labor Day are a bit sketchy; but I am wholeheartedly for Emancipation Day. The freeing of the slaves is one of the few good things that have happened in world history during the last two centuries.

Because April 16 is on a Saturday this year, it is observed on Friday, April 15, where it is a widely observed public holiday. Consequently, taxes are not due until Monday, April 18. Due to this little quirk, together with an additional day for Leap Year, tax season is four days longer this year.

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Now that I am working seven days a week (at my advanced age), there are several methods I use just to survive to April 18. (Yes, that is the deadline date this year. Don’t ask why!)

First of all, I no longer listen to the news on the radio on my way to and from work—especially in a presidential election year, when the news is likely to be all bad. Instead, I turn the dial to KUSC-FM at 91.5 and listen to classical music. Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Dvorak, Bruckner, Wagner—that’s what I need to calm me down.

The last time some guy tried to sell me a hip-hop CD on the beach, I told him I only listen to music by dead white guys who wore powdered wigs. And that’s not far from the truth.

My second coping mechanism is to read a good long book, preferably humorous. This year, that role is being filled by Albert Cohen’s magnificent Belle de Seigneur, which I am reading for the Yahoo! French Literature group. It is a near perfect selection.

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We all know that corporations are taxed based on their annual profit. Yet this profit can be endlessly manipulated using depreciation and a whole plethora of loopholes. As one who has been in the accounting profession for a few years, I have a modest proposal that could at one and the same time:

Increase corporate taxes and

Limit the pay of ravenous CEOs and other management

It’s really quite simple: No company can pay a tax that is lower than the amount of compensation (in cash or stock options) paid to its management. The management positions which trigger this tax policy can (and will) be negotiated endlessly, but the upshot will be higher corporate taxes and less outrageous sums going to overpaid CEOs and their henchmen.

Why should corporate rights be so much more generous than the rights of American workers?